Chapter 18

Across the water,Eugene surprised Alba when he offered a bed at his own home while they were in town, and Alba couldn't help but feel like it was some sort of trick while considering it. He agreed only once the man laughed and slapped him on the shoulder, assuring him there was nothing to worry about, neither him nor his wife would bite so long as Alba didn't give them a reason to. Alba just laughed awkwardly in reply. Not sure he wanted to ask what that could possibly mean.

The things Eridanys told him about new moon traditions between humans and merrow floated in and out of mind as he followed Eugene from the docks up the road, silently observing the broad range of decorations being set up around the town square as the people crowded around with more life than he'd seen since first arriving.

Embroidered tapestries, printed-paper art posters, endless strings of pearls and shells and woven seagrass were hung from doorways and looped around the neck of the dry mermaid fountain at the head of town. Handfuls of people sat in circles weaving baskets on their laps while chatting, discussing all the treasures and trinkets they'd found in months previous when the tide went out and gave them the chance to search the exposed mud. Things they hoped to find the following morning when they had a chance to go out looking again. Some even mentioned how the merrow would arrive once the sun went down, as if they still believed it. As if they only said so out of habit, or perhaps truly didn't know there was only one merrow left in their harbor.

Anyone who didn't know any better would assume they chattered about pretty shells and other gems—but Alba knew what they likely, actually referred to. Dropped merrow trinkets, treasures, abandoned by the kinship that once filled their harbor. His own curiosity tickled the back of his neck, wondering was sorts of things were hidden in the mud—but then the fluted pipes whistled as he passed by, and he pushed the thoughts away. Reminded of the spirits in the woods just a ways further up the road. Not wanting to think about how any of them might be able to see as he scoured the treasure graveyard just below.

The Michaels' home was a few blocks from the sea, as old as all the neighboring buildings surrounding it, sagging beneath its own weight and seemingly only remaining upright with the help of thick layers of brine and barnacles misplaced by the constant wind and impregnating the bricked facade.

Someone waited to greet them the moment they walked inside, as if eager to meet the wickie who'd survived the longest stretch of time tending to their light in months. It caught Alba off guard to be ambushed the moment Eugene invited him through the door, but he put on his most polite smile once he realized, even straightening up and trying to relax the rest of his posture like his mother used to always say when visiting neighbors on his nights back home. You look like a feral cat being taken inside for the first time. Stop hunching like that. Why do you look so alarmed? Straighten up. Meet their eyes. You're a grown man, for god's sake. Stop acting like a salty sailor. I will not let you become an anti-social man who prefers the sea over people.

Alba wasn't sure her efforts ever amounted to anything, all things considered.

He shook Phyllis Michaels' hand as she extended it to him, just like he had everyone else who ever wanted to see him when he returned to Welkin. While Eugene was thick, sturdy even in his old age from all his years on the sea, his wife in comparison was barely a rod of a thing, though her handshake was firm as any he'd ever been on the receiving end of. She smiled at him with cheeks flushed pink, though something told him most of the color could be attributed to powder makeup. Everyone in that town seemed to doll themselves up as much as they could with pigments on their eyes, lips, cheeks.

"I kept wonderin' when I'd finally meet our newest lighthouse keeper," she said. Her voice reminded Alba of his mother's, calm and warm and naturally friendly. She even smiled like Edythe once did, and Alba couldn't help the immediate sense of endearment that softened his nerves. "Gene says you sailed some ten years before coming to work for us—a wonder you survived that long, considering that bright red hair of yours. And still so young! Such pretty blue eyes, too. You sure you weren't drinking saltwater while out on the sea, lad? Heard she loves blue eyes; might've spared you for it despite that hair."

"Phyl," Eugene grunted.

"I appreciate your hospitality, for lettin' me stay the night," Alba said, not sure how to respond to the rest of it. He was used to hearing such things, especially from the wives of other sailors, though never said as cheerfully as Phyllis Michaels did. Usually thick with apprehension, like they secretly prayed Alba wouldn't be assigned to any ship where their husbands or sons were also designated.

"‘Hospitality', hm?" Phyllis beamed, still clutching Alba's hand. "Fancy word for a wickie."

Alba cleared his throat a second time, managing another awkward smile. "I read a lot in my free time, ma'am. Plenty of it while tendin' the lantern, too."

"We need more men who are well-read," she winked, before nudging her husband, who made a gruff sound like in disagreement. "At the very least, to read at all would be an improvement."

"Stop houndin' the lad over his talk, Phyl," Eugene said, finally removing his wool cap and running fingers back through the thinning hair underneath. "Show him to his room, will ya? I gotta get the boys to start movin' boats out." He glanced back at Alba. "You have it in you to help out?"

Alba absolutely did not, especially with how his leg hurt like a bitch just from the hike up the road, not to mention he'd been ruthlessly attacked by a merrow on the lighthouse rocks just the morning prior—but he nodded, nonetheless. It was the least he could do. It would help time pass faster, anyway. A part of him was even curious to be out on the water when the tide shifted, to see if it really was as dramatic as Eugene had described.

Eugene nodded back, returning the hat to his head. "I'll find some boots and a rubber coat for ‘ya, then. Dawson's old might fit you well enough."

Alba almost asked who Dawson was, vaguely remembering Eugene mentioning something about a son, but Eugene wandered off toward another room before he could. Phyllis waved Alba back around toward the staircase to the second floor, and Alba bowed his head before obeying. At the top, she led him down a narrow hallway with floors that squeaked with every step, pausing to pull the door of one room closed just before Alba passed, then continuing to another at the end.

"Sorry for the mess," she said while pushing against the door—though it took a little more ramming with her hip and a steady press of her hands on the wood to really knock it open. "This was my son's room up until a few years ago."

"Dawson, right?" he hazarded a guess, and Phyllis smiled at him with a nod, though said nothing else. Focused on tut-tutting the mess on the other side of the door, hurrying in as soon as the path was cleared to gather up anything knocked over by all her shoving.

Clutter piled from floor to ceiling in some places, filling nearly every corner and down one wall in a random array of boxes, bowls, piles of clothing, blankets, interspersed with shiny trinkets, photographs leaning against one another on the floor, fish netting and counterweights. When Phyllis apologized again, Alba told her it was no mind, appreciating anywhere warm to sleep for the next night or two. Whenever he spoke, she smiled warmly at him all over again, like merely having a young voice in the house was enough to make her heart sing.

"Does Dawson still live in Moon Harbor?" He couldn't resist further, dropping his bag on the bed as Phyllis hurried to clear more junk from it. "I've been givin' all my cigarette cards to Mr. Michaels, who said your son likes to collect them…"

"Oh, he did, did he?" She asked, and Alba sensed the slightest twinge of irritation. Small enough that once she turned around to smile at him again, he could convince himself he'd only imagined it. "Stays here mostly, but sometimes spends a night or two with a neighbor when he needs a change of scenery and they're feelin' sweet on him. Folk here love doting ever since he got sick, a miracle he hasn't been spoiled rotten. Sweet thing. You likely won't be runnin' into him anytime soon, though, so don't worry about a stranger sneakin' up on you in your sleep."

Alba smiled awkwardly, realizing he'd most definitely brushed up against the boundary of what would be shared about their son. He quickly changed the subject, asking about the decorations he'd seen on the street while following Eugene there, instead, and Phyllis seemed just as happy to join him in talking about literally anything else.

The workof moving larger fishing boats out to sea by far wasn't the most difficult work Alba had ever done, but with the state Eridanys had left him in, it wasn't particularly easy, either.

His legs were sore, not even considering the crack in his hip. His thoughts were distracted, face and ears constantly going warm with every reminder, every random thought back to it. How Eridanys had kissed him again that morning with such eagerness. Even how the siren's face had changed while talking about old new moon traditions—Alba wasn't used to it. It shouldn't have meant anything, but he seemed keen on noticing everything Eridanys did since allowing the man to see him in such a vulnerable state. To put him in such a vulnerable state.

With every salt-soaked boat he helped navigate out of the harbor, Alba distracted himself by puzzling through all the ways he could ask about the history of the town, the harbor, if any of the sailors he helped had ever seen anything out of the ordinary while fishing; or even if any of them knew anything about any of the previous lighthouse keepers who Alba had already outworked just by staying as long as he had.

"That last one before ‘ya was a real thing of gossip," the grizzled man said from behind the wheel, struggling to pick his words like he didn't want to say the wrong thing but was already in too deep. All the while not bothering to offer help as a swell tipped the boat and Alba nearly drowned beneath a falling pile of netting. "Rare to hear ‘bout a lady tendin' a lantern, you know? Heard from a doctor years ago that there's somethin' ‘bout how their feminine organs tangle up inside ‘em if they stand too close to something always spinnin' like that. Tried warnin' her once, but she just smiled and said she wasn't plannin' on havin' no more babies anytime soon."

"The last lighthouse keeper—was a lady?" Alba asked, interest piqued even as the rest of him focused on gathering the nets back up. The sailor grunted again, adjusting the pipe in his mouth. "What was her name? You said people gossiped about her?"

"Didn't know ‘er name, but… runned off, just like the rest. Kept t'erself," came the answer. "Gossip wasn't no more different than what they say about you, lad."

Alba frowned. "And what d'they say about me?"

The man's eyes hovered over the exposed black marks on Alba's arms, and Alba realized he should've known.

"Just that the sea takes a strange likin' to ladyfolk and gingers," he said. "How we should turn the next one away if they're one or the other again, or we risk the whole town goin' under."

Alba rolled his eyes, finally shoving the netting back into place. Still—his thoughts ran in a frenzy in the back of his mind as the boat puttered the rest of the way out from shore, churning over every one of those words. A lady tending a lighthouse… saying she wasn't planning on having any more children… Alba could even imagine the exact sort of smile that would have been on Edythe's face if the words had been hers. Biting back what she really wished to say in favor of playing vapid and silly, mostly just wishing to end the conversation so she could get back to her beer. It made him smile to himself. Hoping, maybe, it really had been her. God knew it would explain why Alba thought he found her handwriting in the keeper's log during his first week—a moment he rarely allowed himself to think about too much, else he might spiral into madness.

He almost asked the man to describe what the last wickie-lady had looked like—but then something else caught his attention in the nets he'd piled back in place.

Not unlike the damaged one worked by that circle of hands the last time he was in town, the netting on that boat was woven with silvery threads. Like the hair of an elderly woman, or rather—Eridanys' own moon-kissed strands. Similar enough that Alba couldn't help running a thumb over where the glassy pieces shimmered between the other fibers, trying to determine if they were intentionally woven in, or perhaps just tangled.

In a harbor once lush with merrow, and considering how much hair Eridanys alone had, Alba thought it wasn't unlikely that anything trawling the water might catch on loose strands lost in normal day-to-day. But despite such a simple explanation, he couldn't shake it. It nibbled at him, endlessly, no matter how far into the back of his mind he tried to tuck it away.

It waslate evening by the time the work was finished. Alba was thrilled to finally be done—until that sorrowful song called out from the trees, and he paused to listen. Standing right off the side of the dock, he was the only one to pay them any mind, every other townsperson going about their business. As if they truly didn't hear it; as if they'd simply gotten used to it. He had to wonder which came first—the fluted pipes on their homes, or the pale faces singing in the woods.

Inhaling a deep breath, he checked the horizon over his shoulder. The clouds were thinner than they'd been that morning, making him think they might scatter no different than on the full moon. Offering a clear view of the sky where the moon would be nowhere to be found, to be beseeched and offered gifts in pleas to return, just like Eridanys described.

Making his way up the road, he had to stop and catch his breath more times than he was proud, having overdone it on the boats with an already overworked body. His hip throbbed like it barely clung into place by a thin strip of muscle, not helped by how the arm swinging his cane trembled any time he put weight on it. Only the thought of Eridanys waiting for him at the cemetery kept him going.

Reaching the top of the road, sweat dripped down Alba's face, loose hairs having to be pushed from his eyes in order to see clearly. He was glad for the emptiness of the grassy hilltop on the other side of the town, glad for the lack of salt-scatterers on his heels, thrilled for the lack of faces peering out from the woods. There was only crashing waves on the distant black-sand shores, birds from the forest, gulls crooning overhead. He took another moment to stop and breathe in the fresh air, letting it coat the inside of his lungs and quell his nerves. Unsure what made him so anxious to start—though spotting a hooded figure amongst the tombstones at the end of the cemetery footpath reminded him.

He knew it was Eridanys without having to see his face, embarrassed at how well he could recognize the man just by the way he walked, with a little too much elegance, but at the same time with hints of uncertainty like he wasn't quite used to propping up on two legs.

Eridanys moved among the grave markers like he was looking for something. He paused in front of each one as if to read the names, lips parting and whispering under his breath as Alba approached. If it hadn't been for his choppy footwork in the long grass, he might have even been able to sneak up him, but trying to handle his cane without losing it to the weeds was a noisy affair.

Once Eridanys spotted him, instead of saying hello or anything like it, he pointed at the headstone in front of him. "Can you read this?"

"Huh? Oh," Alba hobbled a little closer. "Uh, looks like Abigail Parson."

"What about that one?"

Alba followed Eridanys' motion. "Miranda Deloitte."

"And that one?"

"Roland Sinclair…" he trailed off, raising an eyebrow. "You can't read, can you?"

"I can read just fine."

"It's alright if you can't. Doesn't bother me."

Eridanys scoffed, adjusting the scarf wrapped around his head to hide his hair and shadow his eyes as the sun barely peeked through the thinning clouds overhead. "I can read fine, but not human languages. My last partner taught me the English alphabet, but hardly more than that. Never saw a reason to ask. Always talked down to me when I tried, anyway."

"Sorry to hear that," Alba said. Eridanys threw him a sharp look, like Alba was on the verge of scolding him. Instead, Alba shrugged. "Readin's hard, ‘specially if you don't learn as a baby. My mother taught me, but just enough to get by. Takes me weeks to get through even small books. Most folk I sailed with never learned how to read, neither, and plenty were smarter than any educated man I've ever met."

Eridanys didn't know what to say to that, like he'd never heard such words strung together in that order.

"I'm startin' to think your partner didn't treat you so well," Alba went on.

"I never said that."

"Didn't have to. Any other names you want to know?"

"No," Eridanys grumbled, then took Alba's hand, pulling him close then nudging him toward the trees. "I want to get this over with."

"What—you want me to walk back up there? By myself?"

"Don't know if they'll talk if they see me."

"Why not?"

Eridanys smirked. He nudged Alba forward again. "Don't think they'll be too thrilled to know I came back. Let alone alive."

Alba frowned. "Startin' to think your kin didn't treat you so well, neither…"

"Just go. I won't let them pull you in."

"I'm trustin' you." Alba's voice shook slightly, not realizing until the words were already out. He steadied his cane. "Don't take that for granted."

Eridanys was quiet for a moment, letting the words settle, before touching Alba's back once more. Not a nudge that time, but a simple, gentle touch.

"You can trust me."

Alba limped toward the mouth of the dirt path that lead into the trees, where the rope decorated with bells shifted in the evening wind. There was no song to greet him that time, to tempt him, and he wondered if it really was because he'd mated with Eridanys, or maybe just because they saw him coming. It did nothing to settle his nerves, fighting the urge to glance over his shoulder as he approached, wishing Eridanys was there with him.

He reached the gap in the trees, halting just before stepping through. Pausing for a moment, holding his breath, listening. Unsure if he was more unsettled or relieved by the silence. Finally, he cleared his throat.

"Hello," he said into the shadows, eyes flicking toward any flash of movement. "I was here a while ago. You… drew me in with your song. Will you sing for me again?"

Alba thought he heard breaths. Perhaps a whisper, perhaps a soft giggle. It could have been the wind, or his own thumping heart playing tricks in his ears. Only when goosebumps flooded his arms, and a pale spot shifted behind a far tree, was he sure he wasn't alone.

"Are you a caller of the shore?"A soft voice cooed, gentle and alluring. Ghostly fingers suddenly touched the side of his head where the silver hair was tucked away, and it took everything in Alba not to lurch in surprise. "Who is your caller of the sea, brine witch?"

"Who else could it be? Who else is left?"

"Delphinus? Hydrus?"

"Cetus?"

"Circinus?"

Alba didn't answer. He couldn't. His ears rang as he immediately understood, every answer he sought striking like lightning with those teasing words alone. Confirming his first instinct all along.

"Then…" he croaked, trying to form a sentence in his mind, struggling to push it through to his mouth. "Then—you really are the merrow who used to live in this harbor?"

He jumped when echoing laughter responded, some close, some far off. More pallid faces blurred behind the trees, never lingering long enough for him to see their features clearly. Alba's heart thundered.

"You've been long from Moon Harbor, haven't you, child?"

"I'm not from?—"

"But you smell of it."

He almost told them about his parents, words nearly spilling out of him as if pulled on a string. He barely bit them back, fighting to center himself back into his body. Recalling what Eridanys said, how mating would protect Alba from another song, but not their tricks.

"Why are you in the trees? Why aren't you in the water?"

"You have such lovely blue eyes."

"Who—"

"Those bloodstains on your skin—who do they belong to?"

"Come, let us get a closer look."

"Oh, sister, smell the salt on him. Whose call did you answer, child? Who did you mate with?"

"Oh—"

Alba's breath caught.

"They reek of Eridanys."

Silence fell. Hard and fast and sharp, cutting through Alba's flesh without leaving a mark. Leaving him trembling despite his best efforts, shivering in a sudden wave of icy cold air.

"Eridanys, the alm of the fata morgana… Does he really swim in our harbor again?"

"I was sure it was he we sensed."

"Why did he not answer our song?"

"He could not have crossed the sand without someone to call for him."

"Perhaps he answers now, with his new mate."

"Eridanys would never mate with such a red-haired wisp of a thing."

"Has he come to save us with a heart full of remorse?"

"Would you like to know what happened to the last human to call for him?"

"Closer, child, please, tell us more. Tell us of our brother returned from the sea-obscura."

More ghostly hands grasped at Alba's by his side, pulling on his cane, nearly knocking him off balance—but something else grabbed him from behind before he could be tugged a single step. Anchoring him where he stood.

The immediate eruption of gasps and hisses from the trees was deafening, making Alba flinch, only to be pulled back another step and tucked under Eridanys' arm. Protectively, firmly, as if there was still a threat of him being taken.

"He asked if you are the merrow who used to live in this harbor," Eridanys growled into the darkness. Bitter laughter responded that time. Apprehensive, suddenly, as if Alba wasn't the only one with chills at the sound of the command. "You will not deny my shore caller his answer again."

"Of course it is us, you wicked thing!"

"How dare you speak with such disdain, after everything you've done!"

"The sea spat you back out to repent for your crimes and set us free, you know it as well as we do!"

"Why else would you come back to this place that recoils at the smell of you!"

"Rotten creature! You brought this!"

Eridanys said nothing as the insults crashed over him, unmoving except to flex his hand on Alba's shoulder. Alba risked a glance up at him—but had to look away again just as quickly. The intensity of Eridanys' gaze would have turned any living thing to stone.

"Tell me what has happened to you," Eridanys said, ignoring all of their other calls. "Not so that I may save a single one of you, but so that I may thank whoever plucked your sorry souls from the sea to cleanse her of such vitriol."

Hissing, snarling answered.

"How dare you! Return to the fata morgana, you wretch! You were never a kin of ours."

"After we raised you, loved you!"

"You wish to see? Return to this place tomorrow in the mid-dark of the new moon and see what you've caused."

"See for yourself what you've done to us."

"Witness the consequences of your selfishness."

"See what they do to us while the moon rests from view."

"Perhaps the gods will finally take you once and for all?—"

"Without a bone left behind to spit out again."

"And you, shore caller?—"

Eridanys' hold on Alba tightened further.

"—Come bear witness yourself, see what this crimson-mouthed siren started. Come see why they did what they did to the blood you seek."

Eridanys gave no more chances for anything else to be spoken, sweeping Alba in one arm and pulling him from the trees. More snarling, biting sounds chased after them from the growing darkness, and Alba nearly turned to look, but Eridanys hissed at him, first.

"Don't," he whispered. "Don't spare them any more interest."

"My cane?—"

Eridanys lifted it, clutched in his own hand. Tight, skin spread over the knuckles as tendons swelled through.

"You weren't in as right of a mind as you thought, sailor. Lucky I came when I did."

Alba snatched the cane back, finally managing to jerk himself out of Eridanys' arm. "I was bein' careful. You're the one who wanted me to speak to them by myself, anyway."

Eridanys didn't argue. Something about the new tense expression on his face told Alba he himself was conflicted about what he was so angry for, too, just gritting his teeth and glaring toward the sea as the sun set. After what felt like an eternity, the siren swung his arm back out again, scooping Alba by the waist and towing him back toward the town.

"You won't have to speak to them again," he muttered. "Good riddance."

"I'll gladly never speak them again," Alba huffed. "You, neither, if I could help it."

Eridanys surprised him with a sharp laugh, though it was sarcastic. "You say that so confidently, yet I felt how your heart raced the moment you realized I was behind you."

"Oh—fuck off! Let go of me!" Alba squirmed in the siren's strong arm, but Eridanys' grip remained firm, even laughing a bit more with the challenge of keeping hold on his thrashing companion.

"Don't fight so much, sailor. It gets me excited."

Alba groaned, giving in and letting the siren do whatever he pleased. Eridanys carried him until they reached the end of the cemetery footpath—but did so wordlessly. Not a sound leaving him as even Alba felt how the siren's mind suddenly drifted far away.

At the end of the path, he set Alba back down as the sky dimmed overhead, allowing stars to freckle against the increasingly dark backdrop in the absence of clouds. But even once Alba was free to walk on his own—Eridanys didn't continue. Not right away. He had his eyes turned upward, unmoving from where they huddled together alongside one the abandoned buildings at the edge of town. Far from any sound of the townspeople or their observing eyes, their excited chatter as they prepared for their new moon celebration the following night.

Alba didn't know when, exactly, his attention was drawn back from the stars to the siren standing next to him, but once his eyes lingered, Alba couldn't bring himself to pull away. No different from how he used to stare at the sky during long nights keeping watch on the deck in the middle of a dark sea, only the moon and her mantle of stars keeping him company, providing him any light to know whether his eyes were open or closed in such ringing emptiness.

Alba gazed as gently as he could at Eridanys, a child of the celestial goddess herself, not wanting him to be able to feel it. Not wanting him to know, to change how he stood or how his eyes traveled so carefully between every constellation as if he knew them all by name. Resisting the urge to ask if merrow also tracked the stars like humans did, telling stories and making pictures out of their shapes. He recalled the names mentioned by those voices in the trees, voices confirmed to be the siren's own lost kin. Names shared with the same stars Alba knew from books, the ones Eridanys tilted his chin to in front of him. Eridanys, himself, named after the river.

Alba soon realized, perhaps he was waiting for something. Something Eridanys would say, something he would do. Any movement that might hint at what the man was thinking, especially with what they'd just witnessed. All the things those faces said in the trees, mentioning constellations by name. Wondering if he searched for those stars in the sky, unable to help himself. But for as long as Alba looked at him, Eridanys never did anything except angle his face to the sky, as if waiting for her to spell something out for him directly.

"What are you?—"

"Do sailors still use the sky to navigate?" Eridanys interrupted, making Alba jump. He hesitated, before biting back a wary laugh. Hoping the siren hadn't been reading his mind. "When I first told you my name, you knew it was from the stars."

"‘Course we do. It's the most accurate map we got."

Eridanys didn't answer, didn't tease further, just continued staring up at the sky. Still waiting for its message to open up for him. Alba kept watching him, observing every twitch of his pale irises as they reflected the glowing white spots speckling the dark canvas. Without the moon to rival him, Alba thought he really was the most stunning thing to exist.

"The other merrow those spirits mentioned—they were all named after stars, too, weren't they?" Alba encouraged as casually as he could manage. Hoping Eridanys would tell him more. "Delphinus, Hydrus, Cetus, Circinus…"

Eridanys still did not answer right away, but he nodded. Alba let him have his silence, not wanting to push any further if he truly didn't want to discuss it. Despite everything he wanted to know, both of Eridanys' relationship with those hissing things in the shadows and all the things they said to him.

Deciding just one more question might be worth the risk, he carefully added: "Will you do what they said? To go back tomorrow night, durin' the new moon…"

Eridanys considered it a moment, before closing his eyes. He exhaled a long breath.

"I'll have to think about it," he finally answered. "I still haven't decided… what I was even hoping to hear from them, once I found them. If I ever did. Let alone, especially now… whether or not I wish to care about anything they say. Or even the state they're in, how they got there… I…"

The silence that followed was as thick, as complex as Eridanys' expression, as the siren just continued gazing up at the stars. Waiting for his answer. To be told what he was meant to do next. Perhaps even what he was meant to think, to feel, like he'd never had the opportunity to do any such things for himself, before—like he'd always taken advice from the stars before deciding anything. Waiting for the moon to answer him, even as just the thinnest sliver she appeared as, before she'd disappear the following night. Perhaps too tired to respond even when one of her moonbeams from the sea needed guidance.

Alba didn't know what to say, either. The siren's words were heavy, enough that even he felt them as they left Eridanys' mouth. Alba only knew that wouldn't push it any further—only hoping that, perhaps by uttering the uncertainties out loud, it released some of the pressure of whatever had Eridanys' mind turning in such silence.